Medicine: Young & Old

Mrs. Anna Smith, 38, of Carbondale, Ill., was unimpressed last week when told that the birth of her seventh child had caused public interest. “Maybe it has,” she gloomed, “but it hasn’t caused no excitement around this house. Just more work.” What interested those outside the Smith household: Mr. Smith, a former undertaker and currently an evangelist preacher, claims to be 101 years old. His son Dallas, the latest arrival, is the youngest of a family begun when Smith was in his late eighties. Father Smith’s explanation of his undiminished virility: “I always eat plenty, and I’ve never done any hard work.”

A clerk in the Harris County Courthouse, Texas was startled when 59-year-old Longshoreman Nolen G. Fite belatedly applied for a birth certificate for his daughter, Mrs. Virgie McCagle, now 47. “Do you mean to say you’re only twelve years older than your daughter?” asked the clerk. “That’s right,” said Fite, “but she’s my second child. My son was born when I was ten.”